About A Boy, About A Girl
by lachambre11
Summary: George has no illusions - there are some sins that can't be forgiven, and some crimes that can't be atoned for. Especially the ones he committed.
1. Atonement

**Atonement**

"_Accept suffering and achieve atonement through it – that is what you must do."_

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.

***~***

Standing at the entrance of the broom closet on the sixth floor, my breathing laboured and my heartbeat erratic, I watched the scene unfolding before me.

He had her wrists pinned above her head while he pumped it in and out of her on a fast rhythm, his breathing coming out as difficult as mine.

The heap of her long brown hair hid her face from view; her head burrowed into the crook of his neck, hanging lifeless as if she had no strength to support it.

Her legs were encircling his ever-moving hips, as if holding on for dear life.

I ran away from the scene that it would be forever imprinted on my memory.

***~***

"How could you do this to me?" I yelled, rage and tears fighting a battle to overpower me. "You knew how I felt about her!"

He opened his mouth to speak, but I turned around and walked away from the person I loved and trusted the most, above everyone else in the world, the person who had just betrayed my trust and went after the girl he knew I was in love with.

My brother.

***~***

Her dark skin flushed as she caught my staring eyes from across the Common Room, and I could feel myself blushing as well.

She sent a tentative smile on my way, and I smiled back.

Then he entered the room and plopped down by her side, and it was if I no longer existed, a mere shadow on the corner of the room. I was no longer there.

There was only him for her at that moment.

There was only her for me all the time.

** *~***

They danced, their movements perfect and fitting, his pale arms sneaking their way around her small waist. She rested her dark hands on his shoulders, her eyes looking at him with admiration and surrender.

He twirled her around, and as his eyes crossed with mine at the other side of the room, he winked and beamed at me, a man filled with content.

I winked back, the gesture feeling anything but natural like it used to, my smile tight and forced, a man who was anything but content, a man with a storm raging on the inside.

My date came back with drinks I didn't really wanted it, but I still shot down the Butterbeer as if it was Firewhiskey, and I was a man at the desert desperate with thirst.

Her laughter ran clear through the room and reached my ears.

My hand convulsed around my drink, and I felt myself growing sick, wanting to heave out the contents of my stomach. Wanting to heave her out of my system.

** *~***

"She ditched me," he told me, as our brother walked down the aisle with his beautiful wife on his arms, their face a picture of happiness and unadulterated newly-wed bliss.

His face a mask of impassivity.

"Fancy getting smashed and acting stupid tonight?"

I was torn between laughing myself to tears or crying myself to laughter.

She had ditched him. They were no longer together. But he was still my brother. It would never happen for me, not with her. I wouldn't do that to him.

"Do you even have to ask?" I told him, my face mirroring his in every possible way. "But no Firewhiskey tonight – we need something stronger."

*~*

"When this bloody war is over," he chokes out, facing a spot somewhere above our heads, his drink hanging sloppily from his hands, "and Harry gets rids of Voldemort for good, I want you to find her and tell her everything."

"Find who?" Panic engulfs me, gripping and paralysing, and I try to find something to say that can turn his attention to something else.

He turns to glare at me, pointedly, and I quickly swallow the last remnants of my drink just to find something to occupy my shaking hands.

It tastes bitter and sweet at the same time.

"I want you to find her," he repeats earnestly, "and tell her how you feel. Tell her everything – that I've always known and that still didn't stopped be from being a selfish git and steal her away because I wanted her for myself. But that you still forgave me for it, even if I could never quite manage to forgive myself."

"And why would I tell her all those things? Why wouldn't you? Aren't you planning on surviving this war?"

"I'm planning on fighting like hell to."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to be happy if I don't." He grasped my shoulder and shook me, hard. "You've got to understand that if it weren't for me, if I hadn't...prevented it, she would've been with you instead. And you could've made her happy, like I never could quite manage to.

"I'm not drunk, even though I would very much like to be. This isn't the Ogden's talking, and this isn't morbidity on my part as well." I was speechless, and furious. "Just humour me here, or even consider this as a final act of kindness from my part, a twisted form of atonement. Just in case I don't...Just in case."

"Well, fuck you and your fucking atonement!" I exploded. "When it comes to you, to us, to our family, there's no bloody 'just in case'." I took a deep breath, and wish I had learned the spell that would fill my glass with more liquor.

"We're surviving this bloody war. All of us. Including you."

"Then after, if you still want to, you can tell her those things yourself."

***~***

"Go!" He yelled at me, while dodging a Disarming Spell. "Go and find her, we'll meet back here in an hour!"

I didn't want to leave him alone, but I knew she was hurt and in danger somewhere. And yet, I didn't want to choose between them.

"But –"

"For Merlin's sake, just go help her, will you?" He smiled at me as I produced an Impedimenta jinx and sent it on the Death Eater's way.

"One hour!" I yelled back at him before running towards her.

I found him one hour later at the Great Hall, lying motionless on the floor with our entire family circling his lifeless body, a goofy grin still stuck on his face.

** *~***

The door of his room at our flat stared back at me mockingly, as if it was daring me to open it up, walk in, and just let the parts of him that had inhabited his room, that represented one the millions things that were a part of him, overwhelm me.

Suddenly her scent assaulted my senses and filled the room, and I would've thought I was dreaming if she hadn't sat right beside me wearing a saddened smile that almost made my heart stop.

We just sat there on the empty flat that was once filled with laughter, saying nothing.

Now the laughter had gone away, and there was nothing but a gigantic void in our lives – mine and hers, and we both had no idea what we were supposed to do with it.

** *~***

Before I realized, it was Christmas again, and I felt nothing but a consuming need to forget him, to start living, to feel something, anything, again.

I knocked on the blue door of her flat, and she answered the door, her eyes puffy and red and her braids undone. She fell into my arms, crying.

"I was hoping it would be you," she whispered fervently against the ticklish skin of my neck, her lips cold and chapped and her hair smelling like a strange but delicious combination of mint and green tea that was entirely her.

We stood there on the cold night until we stopped shaking, until the urge to get warm, to feel anything but this persistent numbness, became more demanding.

** *~***

After countless glasses of a strong Muggle liquor called Tequila, I was halfway drunk and sitting on the floor of her drawing-room, attempting a spell to revive the golden fire of her chimney that was currently dying out.

Her skin glowed, and her feet were resting on my lap, her eyes currently watching my face with a concentration one shouldn't be able to possess while drinking the amount of liquor we had been drinking that evening.

"I don't know how I could've been so ignorant about myself... so... so stupid," she tells me sometime later in the night, her face serious and solemn. "And you know what I'm talking about, don't you? You knew before I did."

I never knew how I was supposed to respond to her declaration, or how to react.

So I merely leaned in and kissed her lips, shyly at first, until her tongue brushed up against my bottom lip and she moaned against my mouth, and I found myself growing hard with the erotic little sound she'd just involuntarily uttered.

Then somehow, she was straddling me and my hands tangled themselves on her hair on their own accord, and we were kissing and groaning and grinding like we were a couple of randy fifteen years old having a quick hump on a broom closet after curfew, hurried and frenzied because Filch could walk in on us any minute.

** *~***

She rubbed her cheek against mine as we both worked overtime to win a battle against our clothes and their buttons, the ones that prevented our skins from touching and seeking the solace we both so badly longed, so strongly needed it.

She hissed and wriggled under me when my tongue encircled her hard brown nipple and my hand strayed to find her throbbing clit.

Pure, careless lust reined over our bodies and dictated our actions.

She rained erratic kisses that felt like butterflies wings brushing up against my shoulders and my face when I turned my attention to her collarbone and sucked on it greedily, without caring it would leave a purple mark on her beautiful skin in the next morning.

When we were finally joined as one in every possible ways, she met every thrust of mine with one of her own, her eyes turning impossible darker with an emotion I couldn't tell if it was pain, pleasure, or maybe both.

Her walls tightened around me, and shivers shook her entire body, from head to toes. I latched on her nipples again and gave in to the waves of pleasure that rolled over me. She rubbed circles on the back when it was all over.

I couldn't look her in the eyes on the next morning when I told her I was leaving, that I couldn't even stay for breakfast.

** *~***

The autumn leaves littering the ground beneath me cracked and crumpled under my weight, its colours cheerful and cruelly alive, as if they were mocking the whole reason of me being there, a bright reminder of what had went wrong in the first place, whom I had been missing for over a year.

Her whole body recoiled when her dark brown eyes met mine across his grave after many months of estrangement and silence between us, many months of regret and shameful desire consuming me.

The hostility in her eyes stung me worst than a slap on the face would, hurtful, upsetting and completely understandable and expected.

I ran away from her eyes, from all things I could never have – the possibility of being forgiven for leaving her on the next morning, the possibility of ever having my sins, my faults, atoned by him. From everything I still felt about her, this traitorous pull that kept attracting me towards her, his girl.

Not mine.

Never mine.

So I ran away from it all, and from the words that it would be forever haunt me.

"Fred Gideon Weasley

April, 1st, 1978 – May, 2nd, 1998.

Keep on living, keep on laughing."

** *~***

** A.N: Remember - reviews are love, so let me know what you thought, and f****or those interested in it, I've put together a soundtrack for this story that can be found on my livejournal (link on my profile). Cheers!  
**


	2. Intermezzo

**Intermezzo**

"_Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal  
the way you dream, the things you feel."_

**Silentium** – Fedor Tvutchev

**Author's Note: **I know that "_Atonement_" was supposed to be an one-shot, but George and Angelina just wouldn't go away, and they bullied me until I sat down and wrote more of their story. I've more one-shots in mind, so please review and let me know if you think I should continue or leave it be.

For those interested in the soundtrack, check my livejournal (link on my profile, click on _homepage_).

***~***

Verity smiled at him and touched his leg, and he could feel himself reacting to her small hands and expert caresses. Her silvery hair shimmered at the low lights, and everyone raised their glasses to toast to Percy and Audrey's wedding.

After three years, they had all moved on and seemed happy, healed, and_ whole. _

He still felt anything but.

Every time he woke-up to Fred-less flat and to a Fred-less life, he felt anything but whole. Every time he thought about Angelina, he felt anything but happy.

Verity...she made him feel less estranged. She didn't grasped irony or cheek, and always giggled. She had fair skin and pinks nipples. She didn't make a habit of nicking his shirts instead of Fred's whenever she slept over at the flat.

She was nothing like Angelina, and that was exactly what he'd wanted.

She rubbed her foot against his calf in a way that let him know her exact intentions. He leaned closer and whispered in her ear "We're leaving, _now_" and she shivered with blatant desire, her grey eyes darkening with lust.

Angelina would've had his balls of for ditching his own brother's wedding celebration, but he couldn't care less about that or about _her _at that moment.

She was out of his life for good, and if anything, the day they'd accidentally run into each other at the cemetery a year ago had confirmed what he'd knew all along. That she was never his – that she'd always belonged to him, with Fred.

He could have never competed with his brother, nor did he wish to. George would've given everything to see him alive again, even if it meant that he would have to endure seeing Angelina and Fred together. Because he would still have him in his life.

He could live with that, but he could never leave with the fact that by being with Angelina, George would betray his dead twin brother more than he already had.

That night, when they came back to Verity's flat, and she let him have her in every possible position, George was a hundred percent sure he'd made the right decision by staying away from Angelina Johnson for the rest of his life.

On the morning after the Sunday Prophet was delivered early, while he was getting dressed and ready to Apparate back to the shop. Verity was seeing the wedding announcements and squealed when a specific one got her attention.

"Listen to this, George – Oliver Wood's getting married this spring to that pretty, Holyhead Chaser that Fred used to date – what was her name again?"

"Angelina Johnson," he offered dispassionately, feeling his blood run cold in his veins.

She was getting married.

***~***

Oliver smiled at her over his morning paper, sipping his tea and nibbling on his grapefruit before reaching out for her hands, as he always did whenever she slept over at his flat and they ate breakfast together, generally in silence.

Her gaze rested on her ring, diamond, ruby and yellow gold, an exquisite and traditional setting, something that probably belonged to his great-grandmother.

While George had cold hands and drank over-sweetened tea, Oliver had warms hands and never drank anything with sugar. George loved buttered and burnt toast or oatmeal, while her fiancée enjoyed fruit first thing in the mornings.

"Our engagement announcement came out this morning." She forced herself to keep my breathing evenly, not betraying the exasperation she was feeling.  
She'd asked him specifically not to send out an announcement. Angelina didn't want _him _to find out about this until she was ready.

"Yes, I saw. You looked beautiful at that picture, Angie."

She hated it when he called her that – her name was Angelina, for Christ's sake!

"Thanks, Oliver." Angelina forced out a smile. "But I thought we'd agreed on not sending announcements." Her tone was even, as she meant to.

"We did," he coolly said, getting up to wash the dishes. He was always like that, tidy and organized, nothing like George, exactly what drove her into his arms on the first place – not the tidy thing, but him being nothing like George.

"But Mother thought it was best if we did send them – she didn't want her friends to think we were hiding anything. You know how she is..."

Yes, she knew. The woman was evil reincarnated, hiding behind the face of a pristine and educated high-society, pureblooded Witch.

"You're not mad, are you?" His lovely blue eyes looked for hers, and Angelina gave in to their silent plea. Oliver was so caring and sweet, and he clearly loved her. Why shouldn't she give him that?

She didn't have any plausible reason not to post the announcements, did she?

Of course not. She meant nothing to George, as he'd made it perfectly clear, and he meant nothing to her anymore as well.

"Of course," she said, and offered her lips to his eager ones. His kisses were always slow-paced and deliberate, his touches careful as if she were fragile.

And maybe it lacked the passion, the enthusiasm, and the fire _his _kisses ignited in her, but Oliver's finesse made-up for it.

"Let's go to bed," he whispered to her, and she nodded quickly and took him by the hands to the luxurious bed with a canopy head and satin sheets on his room.

She'd always liked the cotton ones (the ones that _he_ kept in his flat) way better, but Angelina couldn't let herself think about his sheets when Oliver was kissing with such adoration and care that it brought tears to her eyes.

Tears that had nothing to do with George, that was. She'd cried more than enough tears about him, and she would never cry about him ever again.

***~***

He watched her across the street, her eyes brighter than the last time he'd saw her. Her hair was longer and she wore it straight now, instead of braided, as he'd always like it. On her right hand lay an extravagant diamond ring, a ring that screamed of old money and dinner parties, one that was nothing like her_._

She was trying it on a champagne wedding dress, strapless and form fitting. Alicia, Katie and another friend stood by her, gushing at how truly breathtaking she looked. She spun around, smiling, her face vibrant and excited.

George wanted to storm into that store, rip that offending dress off her body and take that ring off her finger. He wanted to yell at her for being so bloody perfect, everything he'd ever wanted, everything he could never have it.

He Apparated to Verity's flat instead, and took her on the kitchen table. She purred like a Cheshire cat on his ear, and he barely managed to keep _her _name from spilling out of his lips when he came.

***~***

Angelina dealt well with separation. She actually felt less restless whenever Oliver was away at training or at games instead of sleeping by her side every night on their bed. Sure, Angelina missed coming home to the romantic candlelight dinner he'd cooked for them, but sometimes he was so bloody damned _perfect _that she felt suffocated around such flawlessness.

She finds herself then missing _his _crooked smiles, the way her night-shirt always ended up smelling of him (and it had nothing to do with the fact that she'd gotten the habit of nicking his shirts instead of Fred's whenever she'd slept over at their flat), the burnt toasts for breakfast or how he would sometimes brood and pout for no apparent reason.

So she liked when Oliver was away, because it keeps her mind from wandering to dangerous territories like those. When he was away, it made it easier for Angelina to love him.

***~***

Verity sometimes got the feeling that George thought she was either blind or stupid. That she couldn't see how he was always pining away for someone, or how his mind seemed to drift off once in awhile to places she'd no access to.

She knew that, and she'd still let him in her bed, in her house, in her heart.

Verity wasn't expecting forever with him, but she wanted the _now_, and he constantly refused to give her any opening, any part of him to her. Instead, he pushed away further and further, saving himself for someone that, as far as Verity knew, couldn't care less about what George had to offer.

But she did – and, honestly, she should've known better than to fall in love with him. She deserved better than that, better than his long silences, his biting cynicism, or his selfish touches. Verity didn't want to keep him warm until the right girl came around and he ditched her as effortless as he'd taken her up.

She hadn't been a Gryffindor, but she still had some pride left in her to end things with him before she'd surrendered her entire life to him.

***~***

It tasted funny and not wholly pleasant, but it worked wonders for him, so George was willing to put up with the small turn-offs so as not to feel anything anymore, especially not on this blasted day.

The dealer smiled when he saw the pile of coins George had handed on his direction without a second thought, greedily counted the Galleons and Apparated away after fixing a date for their next transaction.

It was his fourth birthday without Fred.

***~***

She laid the flowers on his marble grave, as she did every time she visited, knowing full well he'd never appreciated flowers (_they're for girls, and only that_) but that he would understand her need to do, at least this, for him.

"Happy birthday, Fred," she said, even though she sometimes still felt stupid for talking to him when he clearly couldn't hear her, let alone answer back.

"I still miss you, but it gets a little bit easier with every passing day. Sometimes I can swear I hear a laugh just like yours, and I turn around looking for you, but of course, you're not there. And I just feel silly, and my eyes get all watery, and Gods, I can almost feel you rolling your eyes and telling me not to get 'all girlie' on you." She heaved a deep breath and sat on the barren ground.

"I'm engaged." There, she'd said it. "To Oliver Wood." A hint of a smile graced her features. Angelina was sure that Fred would have _a lot _to say about this particular development. "And I know, you thought he was a self-centered prat, but newsflash, luv? So were you, even though I loved you to -" she gulped, but still finished her sentence. "- death."

Suddenly, the urge to weep overcame her, and because she knew she was alone there, Angelina let herself finally break down and sob, clutching her stomach when it became harder to breath, her tears blinding her eyes.

"Why did you have to die on me, uh? Tell me, Fred, why the bloody hell why? If you hadn't...if you still were here, things wouldn't be so bloody messed up right now. We would still be together, and it would be _us _getting married! It would be us, and I would've never realized how I feel, _felt_, about George! Because you were like the sun, blinding me to everything but you, and if you hadn't fucking _died _on us I wouldn't feel this miserable and guilty all the time!"

She gasped for air, her head heavy, a splitting headache on its way, but she continued her tirade. She was too angry to stop now, the words she hadn't dare to utter for years finally making its way out.

"This...this _ache _in my heart wouldn't be there, and things would continue like they were. And it was perfect, Fred, so bloody perfect! Whenever George would look at me, in a certain way that made my stomach flip, you would make a joke and the moment would pass! But no, you had to be so bloody noble to go out as a fucking _hero,_" and she spat this word with disgust, "and I was left alone to analyze, and to miss you, and to see _him _suffer, and to feel like his pain was more unbearable to me than mine, and to want to reach out and _heal _him..."

"I hate you for doing this to me, to him, Fred. I hate you for leaving us on this mess, and I hate myself because I _can't stop_ hating you and loving him!"

"So tell me, how am I supposed to make it right?"

The rain started to fall, cold, and heavy, soaking through her clothes, mingling with her tears, hiding them away, dissipating the bitterness of it on her mouth.

***~***

George knows that any sane person, when stumbling upon this sort of situation, would just turn around and leave, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

He was pretty damned sure he must be a masochist or something.

A couple of her friends were there, a group of them, brightening up the atmosphere of the pub, but George can't see anyone butAngelina.

She shines and vibrates at the dark room, her laughs rings clear and raspy through the place, reaching his ears (_ear, _he reminds himself), sensual and so entirely _her _he almost kneels down and die from the fire it ignites on his chest.

He longs to reach out, to feel her skin against his, to taste her taste once again, to be with her just as they'd been before. To look into her dark brown eyes and see something but despise or anger directed at him in them.

As if sensing his stare, Angelina looks up and sees him standing there on a dark corner, watching her, and tentatively smiles on his direction. He tries to duplicate her gesture, but it comes more like a grimace than anything akin to a smile, and he nods curtly instead.

Her smile broadens, and for a minute, it almost feels like things are finally going to be good between them again. But when Oliver approaches the table with an apologetic look on his face and kisses her cheek, Angelina looks away from him to the guy she's set to marry within months.

The moment it's gone as suddenly as it came.

And suddenly he can't take it, can't bare seeing him touching her, linking her long, elegant fingers with his, kissing her full lips as if he had any right to.

But George reminds himself that Oliver does have a right to, and he wants to _kill _him for being the one that gets to be with Angelina, when he desperately wishes he could, but knows he can't.

So he leaves the pub and Apparate home to his empty flat; to try to drink the cursed feelings he has for Angelina away, as he had tried so many times before.


	3. Divided

**Divided**

_"I figured out I'm holding on too tight  
And I can't let go__."_

Planets - Adema

**A.N: **Sexual situations and swearing. It _is_ M rated for a reason. Also, English isn't my first language, so please, be kind.

***~***

His hand hitched up across her dark, firm thigh, moving under her skirt, reaching the border of her knickers, gently lowering them down until they reached her ankles. She stepped aside and kicked them away, not really sure where they landed, not even caring.

She sighed and threw her head back in pleasure when his cool fingers flickered over her clit – she felt warm all over. His other hand sneaked around her back and grabbed her possessively by the waist, lowering her body to his, settling her on his lap, against his erection.

His fingers continued to rub and tease, and Angelina couldn't stop moaning and grinding against him as she fervently kissed his pale, freckled shoulders, his nose, his brown eyes. He sucked on her collarbone, making shivers run through her spine, and she nibbled on his ear, eliciting a loud groan that made her even wetter than she had already been.

She was so close to her release she could almost taste it.

"Angie?" someone shook her by the shoulder, and she grunted on her pillow. She didn't wanted to wake up, not when the dream felt so real, not when she had been so close…

"Angie, you're late for your final dress fitting. It's nine o'clock, and Alicia and Katie are already waiting for you at the store."

It was Oliver's voice. Her fiancée was reminding her about a dress fitting. Her bloody_ wedding dress _fitting, the last one she would've before becoming Mrs. Angelina Wood.

And there she was, having erotic dreams, for lack of better term, with her dead boyfriend's twin brother. She opened her eyes and Oliver's beautiful smile greeted her. He bent down to kiss her lips.

"Good morning, my love," he said, and cupped her cheek.

Angelina was still aroused from the dream she had about another man, and she couldn't have felt more disgusted with herself if she tried.

If that wasn't fucked up, she didn't know what else would it be.

She was a whole new level of freak.

***~***

He could see her from his store again, wearing the dress that would make her Wood's wife. She didn't look happy from where he was standing.

Or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

Angelina's eyes caught his from across the street, and the meek smile she was sporting before, probably for the sake of her friends, completely faded.

He nodded in acknowledgment.

She pretended like she had never seen him standing there, watching her.

George knew he'd had it coming anyway.

***~***

A week.

Her wedding was a week away. In seven days, she would be bonded with someone for _life_. It was such a huge concept to grasp, and Angelina couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that she hadn't realized and given this much thought beforehand.

Once she'd promised herself to Oliver, there was no turning back.

Wedding jitters were nothing compared to the terror Angelina was feeling.

***~***

He could feel her presence there, even when she didn't uttered a word. The smell of mint and green tea lingered on the living room, dizzying, unforgettable, a smell that belonged to anyone else but her. She was there, at his apartment.

_Angelina._

His breathing quickened.

She was sitting barefoot and cross-legged on his bed, wearing only jeans and a shirt, her hair down and framing her beautiful face.

"I'd always liked cottons sheets better," she'd told him, before reaching for his hand.

The moment they touched, George couldn't care less about anything else in the world – the fact she didn't really wanted him, but Fred; that she was marrying someone else, that he wouldn't be able to look at himself in the mirror the next morning.

It had been so long since he'd touched her, felt her heart beating under his palm, the warmth of her body, the way she moved under him…

He kissed her like his life depended on it, savouring everything, for he knew that in the morning she would be gone. She would come back to her life, get married, pop two or three kids, and go on as this had never happened.

He would find some way to move on, to get past the strange hold she'd over him.

Her eyes never left his, never closed. Her stared never wavered from his face, from his eyes, as if she was too trying to memorize every inch of him.

_Of Fred,_George corrected himself.

After it was over, he rolled off and lay facing the wall. He didn't want to have to watch when she finally walked away from his life for good.

***~***

George breathing was even and quiet, his overgrown hair falling over his closed eyes as he slept. Angelina couldn't stop staring at him, drinking everything in – the five freckles above his left eyebrow, the curve of his nose, his chapped lips.

It felt strange to be lying in bed naked with him, with this man she barely knows now, and yet, loves with desperation she'd never thought possible before.

It took her years to finally realize it, then many more to finally admit it.

Angelina wraps his blue, cotton sheets around her body and settles by the window of his bedroom. Diagon Alley looks almost beautiful from there, its lights dimmed, the moon almost full, making the cobblestones streets nearly gleam in the night. There's not a living soul out in the streets, and it's so peaceful and quiet that it almost makes Angelina's inner turmoil calms down.

Oliver was probably up, worriying himself sick wondering where she'd gone.

But Angelina couldn't bring herself to put her clothes on and leave his flat, to come back to her life, even though she knew she couldn't stay there either.

***~***

He felt when the weight of her warm body left his bed. It wasn't because she'd stolen the sheets or because he suddenly felt empty lying there alone.

She was sitting by his window, her face hidden in the shadows, only parts of her profile visible. She looked worried, the dimple on her cheek showing, like it did whenever she was smiling or deep in thought.

She didn't left the flat like he'd expected her to, and that puzzled him more than anything. Why she would stay? When it was sex, she could at least pretend that he was Fred, but if she stayed…if she stayed, she would see _him_.

George.

Angelina sighed and looked away from the window, straight into his eyes.

They stared at each other without saying anything.

***~***

**A.N: Review, please?**


	4. Sideways

**Sideways**

_  
__"__Go 'way from my window,__  
__Leave at your own chosen speed.__  
__I'm not the one you want, babe,__  
__I'm not the one you need__."_

It Ain't Me Babe – Bob Dylan

***~***

George was frozen in place.

Angelina was looking at him intently, her gaze never wavering from his face. She was looking at _him_, George realized, like he'd never expected her to.

"I thought you would've left by now," he said, because the silence felt too heavy.

"Do you want me to?" Her eyes flashed with defiance as if daring him to ask her to leave.

"Do you want to?" He asked.

She looked away from him.

***~***

"I think it's funny," she'd said after a long moment, where she'd looked at the streets outside his window and he'd looked at her, wrapped into his blue cotton sheets, "in a non-amusing way, of course, how you can be so bloody oblivious."

"What do you mean?" He asked her, even though he pretty sure he didn't want to hear the answer. But curiosity, like always, got the best of him.

"That's exactly what I meant." And she gave him a slight smile, though it was clearly not an amused one. "But then again, you never know, do you, George?"

His name resounded across the room like a profanity. Angelina had avoided calling him by his name whenever they were together, after Fred's death.

He'd thought it was because it helped her maintain the fantasy of being with his brother instead of being with him.

Now he could no longer hold on to that – she'd changed everything between them once again, like she'd changed before, on the first Christmas after the War.

***~***

"I'm in love with you," she said, and when he just stared at her without saying anything, she looked away again. He struggled to find the right words, to catch his breath, but failed miserably at both.

He settled for resenting her for just not letting things be.

***~***

"You don't have to say anything, you know." She was the one to break the unbearable, heavy silence this time. "It's not like I planned it or anything."

"It just happened."

***~***

"When?" He asked, when his brain begun to function again and he rediscovered how to form words and put sentences together. "When did you know?"

"Does it really matter?" Her smile was even bigger now. "I just do."

"How utterly stupid of me."

***~***

"It's not stupid."

His protest sounded feeble even to him.

"It's not exactly smart either," she retorted.

***~***

"I reckon it was just always there, you know? In the back of my mind, a feeling I never questioned, that I had never really given much thought to."

"Until –"

"Until Fred died." He finished her sentence, his voice hollow and bitter.

"No." She'd managed to surprise him yet again. "Not until _Dumbledore_ died."

He certainly hadn't seen that one coming.

***~***

"Everything changed for me after that. Up until then, I had a faint idea that things were going bad, and we were at the verge of a war, but it wasn't until Dumbledore's death that I realized that we _already _were at war."

"And that there was no turning back."

***~***

"It was a wake-up call, for the lack of a better metaphor. I started to re-evaluate everything, and being with Fred was one of the first things I questioned."

"I loved him, George." Her voice was so quiet that he more guessed than heard out her words. "I truly, madly, deeply loved him."

"He was a great friend," she said, a faraway look on her face. The familiar sting of jealousy stirred in his stomach, closely followed by guilt. Fred was _dead_. He was gone. He had no right to feel this envious of him, of Angelina's love for him.

"He was my_ best _friend," she continued. "And if I hadn't been for the War, I would've never questioned being with him. Hell, we might've even gotten married after a while."

Her words felt like a punch in his guts.

"But the War came, and along with it, the truth. We weren't in love, had probably never been, and deep down, we had always knew that." Her eyes bore into his, intense and strangely magnetic. "And that's why he broke things off."

***~***

"He told me _you _broke it off," he finally said. "He told me it was because he couldn't make you happy."

"He could. He did. But there was always something missing between us, and we both felt it. Fred wanted a girl that could follow his pace, and for a while, I was more than glad to be that girl, but I – I'd changed. He'd changed."

"It was a _war_, George, a fucking merciless one. I didn't expect to survive it, and neither did he. When it came down to it, we both knew it was time to move on, to be with someone that meant forever and not just now."

***~***

"On the night of the Battle," she told him, her eyes never leaving his, "I was so scared I could lose you. Both of you. And when it happened, I realized that the only person I could turn to was you, because only you would understand."

"You'd lost your best friend too."

***~***

"After a while, I started to put everything together. Why my heart would quicken every time you looked at me in that certain way you do, with your head tilted a little bit to the left, your eyes solely focused, as if you could really _see _me."

She let out a humourless laugh, shaking in his sheets.

"Why I could barely breathe when you as much as touched my elbow to keep me from falling. Why a small smile from you got me smiling for hours."

***~***

"That Christmas, when you came to see me, everything fell into place. I tried to tell you then, but I don't think you listened. Or maybe you were too drunk to care, to remember it."

"No," he told her. "I listened. I cared."

"I remember everything about you, Angelina."

***~***

"_I don't know how I could've been so ignorant about myself... so... so stupid. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you? You knew before I did."_

***~***

"Do you love me?" she asked him, her face curious, but her eyes guarded. He couldn't tell if she really expected him to answer her or at least, to do it honestly.

"I do." She looked shell-shocked for moment, as she hadn't expected this surrender, this admission. And he hadn't expected it to be this easy to admit, not when he'd spent so much time trying to forget all about it. "So much it consumes me."

***~***

Something clicked and changed in the air. Within seconds, Angelina flung herself across the room and crashed into him, her lips pressing hard against his, his blue cotton sheets the only barrier between their bodies.

***~***

"We're so fucked up," she whispered when they broke apart, her forehead resting against his, her eyes closed. "I'm getting married in a week."

His body tensed up at her outburst. She opened her eyes, just then grasping the repercussions of what had just happened between them.

"George?" He refused to look into her eyes, because he knew that if he did, he would just get drawn back in. "I'm telling Oliver, you know? I couldn't possibly marry him now."

"I don't think you should," he told her, and she rolled away from him, confused and angry. Their brief moment of understanding and happiness was over, as life and reality had sneaked up on them again.

They were still George and Angelina, and they were still a millions reasons for them not to be together.

They had never really stood a chance.

***~***

"What are you talking about?"

He knew she was trying to hold on to what had happened earlier. He wanted to soothe her, to make her feel like it was possible, even though he knew it wasn't.

Now they had told the whole truth, there was no point in lying anymore.

"I think you should marry Oliver," He repeated, forcing himself to just look at her, because it felt like it would be the last time he would ever have the chance.

She looked _furious._

"Where the fuck do you get off by doing that? You shag me, tell me you love me and send me back to my fiancée?"

***~* **

"It's not like that, Angelina."

"Then, please, tell me how it is, George," she spat. "Enlighten the fuck out of me."

He drew a long, calming breath.

"I do love you, but I don't think I can be with you. I don't think I can live with myself if I break off your marriage –"

"You're not! I am breaking it off!"

"– and I don't think I can forgive myself for being with you," he continued as if she hadn't interrupted him, "because I don't think Fred would be able to do it too."

She was silent for a long time after that.

***~***

"It's not rational, I know that." He touched her shoulder, but she flinched away from him. "And I know he would want us to be happy and that he wouldn't hold it against us if we were together, but I can't help it. It's just how I feel."

"Can you please try to understand that, Angie?" He tried to touch her hair, but she turned around and gave him a blazing look of hurt and disappointment.

"Don't you call me Angie, George Weasley," she said, and climbed out of his bed. "And don't you dare touch me anymore."

With a blink of an eye she picked up her clothes, hurriedly put them on and left with a loud pop of Apparation.

He knew better than to try to chase after her.

***~***

**Review, please?**


	5. Fidelity

_**About A Boy, About a Girl**_

**Chapter 5 – ****Fidelity**

_"We're reeling through an endless fall  
We are the ever-living ghost of what once was  
But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do  
No one's gonna love you more than I do."_

No One's Gonna Love You - Band of Horses

***~***

The light in their bedroom is on, and Angelina hesitates in the doorway. He's up, waiting for her to come home. Waiting for things Angelina can't quite give him – motive, an explanation, love.

All she can offer him are excuses and apologies.

And all she can hope for, if she dares do such a thing, is forgiveness.

Taking a deep breath, she opens the door to their flat. It's time to deal with the man she'd promised love, faithfulness and a lifetime together. She has and will fail to deliver every single one of them.

She knows better now – knows that she can't offer him any of those things, and it was deeply wrong to pretend otherwise, as she had been doing.

As she enters their bedroom she knows how she must look – like a woman thoughtfully ravaged. It should shame her, but Angelina can't bother to feel anything but anxiety right now.

And when she sees Oliver's worried and shocked face staring back at her, she knows she has to do the right thing, that she has to tell him the whole truth - no sugar-coating or dancing around it, because she owes him at least that, this little bit of honesty.

"Where _were_ you?" he asks the moment their eyes meet.

Angelina closes her eyes and drops her shoes on the floor, the loudness of its fall echoing in their silent flat. She enjoys the last seconds of having Oliver not hating her, not yet. Then she opens her eyes and grieves for the end of it.

"I was with George."

And the whole world crumbles into a tiny million pieces.

***~***

"_George_?" And it feels like a slap, _his _name, the bitterness in Oliver's once-loving voice, the sneer of disgust marring his beautiful features.

Angelina wishes with all her heart that she could've loved him like he deserves, wishes a different million things, but it all comes back to the fact that she can't change anything that's happened. "Two days before our wedding, you went out and shagged the twin brother of your dead boyfriend?"

He's looking at her as if she's a stranger, an intruder in his flat, in his life. Angelina can't blame Oliver – she doesn't feel like herself, hasn't felt like herself ever since the night she figured this whole mess out – that she's unhappy. That she loved Fred, that she loves George, that she can't marry Oliver.

"Something tells me this isn't the first time it happened." And he gets impossibly closer to her, so close there's no breathing space between them.

He lifts her chin up with his hands and they're now face to face. Angelina trembles without really knowing why, but there's something mad and haunted in Oliver's eyes that chills her to the very core. "I bet Fred wasn't even cold and buried in the ground before it happened." And Angelina wants to scream, to yell at him to stop, but she can't move, she can't think straight when he's looking at her like that, with murder and hatred in his eyes, so different from the Oliver she knew, from the Oliver that claimed to love her. "Am I right, Angelina?"

She just shakes her head. He snorts and releases her face, barely stopping himself short from pushing her away. He turns his back to her and runs his hands through his hair, then starts to cry. The tears startle her more than the rage, and Angelina feels worse at the sight of them.

The anger, the loathing, she can understand. She deserves them, feels them every day, and she no longer can stare at herself in the mirror. But the tears turn her inside out until she's raw and confused, a quivering mess worth of pity.

"I'm so sorry," she blubbers out, and they're both crying now, hugging, her face burrowed in his neck, his face burrowed in her hair. "I never meant for this happen…" She clings to him as if holding on to dear life. She_ needs _him to understand, to _know_. "I never meant to hurt you."

They break apart, and he cups her face, kisses her cheek, her lips, tugs on her hair. It should feel like a blessing, to have him not pushing her away in disgust, to feel there's still love in every touch, but it only hurts, twinges and burns, an echo of what it should be had it been anyone else but him, but her.

_This should feel right_, she thinks. _This should feel true_.

But it doesn't, and she can't change that. She doesn't really want to, and Oliver can feel that.

"Leave," he says, his voice hoarse with tears, and she can see the anger rising up again. He's afraid that if she stays, he will either hurt her or forgive her, and he can't bear to do either. She wants him to do both, but she can't ask this of him, she doesn't deserve it. Not yet, maybe never.

So she leaves, quickly putting together everything of hers she had there, and wonders how a life and two years together can be so easily packed away. She leaves, and leaves the ring on the top of what used to be their bed, feeling only sadness now.

_I wish it hadn't been this way_, she thinks, but can't bring herself to say it, can't bring herself to impose on him any more than she already has.

So she leaves like he asked her to, and she never comes back.

***~***

He hears about what happened over breakfast, when Verity erupts into his flat with The Prophet in one hand and pastries in the other. He eats the pastries and pointedly ignores the paper and Verity's babble until she realizes he doesn't want to hear about the speculation over the break-up of Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson just days before their marriage.

He considers it a small blessing that no one has been able to sniff out the true reason of that break-up, and just because he feels grateful, he kisses Verity's cheek as a way of apology when he finally makes it downstairs to open the store for the day.

He goes about his life as normal for the next six weeks – working, eating, drinking, and fucking Verity, not exactly in this order. He doesn't dream about her as he often did, nor does he seek her out. He especially doesn't obsess about her words, or about the fact she claimed to be in love with him.

Those words were everything he'd wanted and dreaded to hear, but right now, George is sick of Angelina, sick of the mess they made, sick of feeling guilty, sick of watching his family move on, heal, while he still feels as if he is going nowhere, and has nothing to look forward to.

No. George is now, for one, more than ready to feel happiness again.


End file.
